October 29 - November 4, 2023
celebrityupdate
BY JAY BOBBIN
Kirstie Alley OF CHEERS ON NBC
Carrie Coon and Morgan Spector in “The Gilded Age”
Q: I recently saw a repeat of “Cheers” that had Kirstie Alley in it. How long was she on that show? A: The late actress joined the NBC sitcom, set in the Boston bar “where everybody knows your name,” in 1992 at the start of the sixth of its 11 seasons. Her character, Rebecca Howe, became the site’s manager and effectively assumed the former spot of Diane Chambers (played by Shelley Long) as a romantic interest and verbal sparring partner for bartender Sam Maloine (Ted Danson). Alley already had done a considerable amount of television work by the time she began her “Cheers” tenure, including her stints as a non-celebrity contestant on “Match Game” and “Password Plus.” Her first major acting role was TV-based, as Lt. Saavik in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” (1982), though that was a theatrical film. She had a brief mid-1980s run in the ABC espionage series “Masquerade,” then gained attention in the ABC miniseries “North and South” and played iconic feminist Gloria Steinem in the ABC movie “A Bunny’s Tale.” “Cheers” came next for Alley, and most of her extracurricular work during her run on that series leaned toward feature films. She used her hiatus periods from the show to make such movies as “Shoot to Kill” (1988), “Loverboy” (1989), “Sibling Rivalry” (1990) and the three “Look Who’s Talking” comedies (1989, 1990, 1993). Alley would make several other series, including “Veronica’s Closet” and “Kirstie” (though her character in the latter was named Maddie), later.
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Carrie Coon (“Gone Girl,” 2014) stirs up trouble for the opera in Season 2 of “The Gilded Age,” premiering Sunday, Oct. 29, on HBO and Max.